The Sky in the Pond of Little Fish's Dreams
by planet p
Summary: Missy is a hunter; third in a series.


**The Sky in the Pond of Little Fish's Dreams** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _Supernatural_ or any of its characters.

* * *

Della and Janie were some cool customers. Swanny – AKA Missy – had just watched them pocket three DVDs, five CDs, and a pack of gum, and walk right out of the corner/bargain hunter's store, cucumber-cool.

Outside the store, Della retrieved the gum from her pocket and began to open the packet and unwrap two pieces, passing one to her artful accomplice, Janie.

And were they artful!

Veejaya, the bored-looking cashier behind the counter, was watching a foreign language soap opera on the television on the wall, mounted next to the _other_ television set, airing the shop's real-time security footage, oblivious to the – and any and all – customers' goings on inside the shop.

Missy replaced the magazine she'd only half been reading, and walked up to the counter, asking if Sid was in, and if not, if there was any possibility of locating him in the outside world.

"Sid's dead. Wasted," Veejaya told her slowly, indifferently, her eyes still on the soapie on the set. "Last week, maybe a week before that… Mmm?" She gave a noncommittal shrug of one shoulder, then darted her eyes to Missy's face. "What's it to you? You his flesh stuff?"

Missy frowned, allowing confusion free reign over her features.

"You his girlfriend?" Veejaya rephrased, and if she'd been chewing gum, Missy imagined she'd have popped it then.

"No, I'm with _the Health Department_!" Missy bit sarcastically. "Who do you freakin' figure I am?"

Veejaya laughed roughly, her brown eyes darting back to the soapie on the television screen for a moment, then back to Missy's face. "Like I said, he's yesterday's toast. Fried, with extra mayonnaise. Move on, it'll do ya good."

Missy pulled a face. "He owes me," she growled. "I ain't moving 'til I get what's owed t' me."

Veejaya huffed. "Look, girl, his sister's a tattoo artist 'round here; you take that up with her, not me." She pointed a finger, arm stretched out across the counter, toward a shop some way along the street outside the window.

A tattoo parlour, Missy's preliminary backward glance supplied.

"Name's Zinerva. Why don't you go on an' take your justice-for-the-people crap off to her door, not mine, uh? Do us a break, beat it!"

Missy contorted her face into a scowl, and growled. "I ain't no one's flesh stuff!" she spat, before turning on her heel and leaving the store.

* * *

Zinerva, as it turned out, was a man who'd adopted the role of a convincingly feminine tattooist.

It could have been that he wanted to be a woman, or it could have been something else entirely, Missy wasn't exactly itching to find out; she was more interested in Sid's story.

It had been a coupe of moments after she'd stepped into the tattoo parlour, and out of the brightness of the sun-filled street, when she was greeted by Zinerva's voice telling her, "Ain't no special rates for your likes, and ain't gonna be so long as I'm runnin' this house!"

"Ya care to expound on the exact and precise nature as you see as 'my likes,' lady?" Missy had bit back, leading directly to her discovery of Zinerva's secret identity.

"Gentleman, actually," Zinerva had replied, surprisingly calmly, in her gentleman's voice.

Missy – ever the clumsy one when it came to _people_ – had laughed.

Zinerva for her – or his – part had been unfazed.

Missy had then decided, in keeping with the sharing-is-caring nature of their young relationship, and Zinerva's illusory artistry, to reveal to Zinerva the true nature of Sid's trip to meet his end: that was, at the hands of a killer mummy – no, you didn't hear wrong, kiddies, viewers at home – _a killer mummy!_

Okay, so the mummy wasn't a real mummy, and the mummy wasn't really alive, but it was killing, and Missy intended to find out how it was doing so, and _who_ was controlling it to do so.

Zinerva, as collected as ever, explained, at present, "Look, sweetheart, you ain't the only hunter visitin' these parts o' late. Seems like you missed the callin', Yaffa been sorted out, put on the straight and narrow. Ain't gonna be no more budget horror flicks in her future. It was Sid who woke that mummy. Bin put back to sleep, nice and comfy, now. Sid's been put to rest, there ain't no more sleepin'-with-the-fishes to be doled out, way I see it."

Missy crossed her arms. "Who tells you I'm a hunter? I gotta rep, some?"

Zinerva didn't shake her head, but slouched slightly. "No, girl. My baby bro, Sid, he was a witch. Got burned, poor baby. Seems like it runs in families, though. I got the sight, hon'. Anyone can see, plain as day, your rep right there on your wrist." She nodded to the charm bracelet Missy wore on her right wrist.

Missy twisted the bracelet on her wrist, apprehensive, and uncomfortable. "How do I know it ain't you set that mummy – not mummy – after Sid yourself?" she accused.

Zinerva laughed. "Sid was my brother, hon'. I loved him. I'd o' got the notion to lay him ta rest, I'd done it with a bullet, just one bullet, nice and clean."

Missy shrugged. "What if I'm not convinced?"

"Sam and Dean Winchester were convinced, figure you can swallow some and cast them a bit of trust. They've bin in the game a lot longer than you, girl."

Missy shrugged again. "It's like you said, you got the sight. You coulda just pulled that outta my head right now, for all as I know."

Zinerva pointed to the door. "I don't think I need to explain it to you," she said, and turned away from Missy to go about her business.

Missy took this as an invitation to leave, and turned on the heels of her boots, figuring that either Zinerva was exceptionally trusting, to turn her back on a hunter, exceptionally cunning, or exceptionally dumb. She turned back at the door. "Where is he buried?"

* * *

Missy stood in front of the new grave, and listened to the sounds of sunny, fresh things, and things basking themselves in the sunny light and fresh air, the grass soft beneath her boots, stems of the flowers soft and cool in her hands.

She placed them down at Sid's grave and turned and walked away, imagining, later, the sunny, fresh sounds drawing to silence, just as the cool, green stems of the flowers dried up.

She imagined the little girl and the young woman from the photograph sitting on the grave beside her flowers, sitting alone at home, missing Sid, cherished father and boyfriend, along with Zinerva, alone in her darkened parlour, and the images in her mind that weren't all her own, missing her brother.

They'd get together one day, maybe for a coffee, in one of those small, short-lived fashionable cafés in a mall or plaza somewhere, and remember Sid; remember, as they watched the kid playing with something, a toy, or magazine, or plastic spoon, why Sid had tried, and why they'd continue to try.

It was all about family, in the end.

Missy uttered a silent prayer that wherever her own family were now, dead or alive, that they were in peace, before she stepped through the cemetery gates, the sound of gravel crunching beneath her feet, loud and obtrusive beside the sounds of birds singing, and bugs click-clacking, and flowers swishing in flower beds.

Good old Sam and Dean, she thought, as she made her way towards her Toyota, glad that they were still out there, doing what they did, and what she did.

Some said that hunters were family too.

* * *

_Extremely lame, no?_


End file.
